CrossSection
by blinkblink
Summary: It's a long walk from the hospital to the base. Saitou joins the Major. Expansion on 2nd GIG "Poker Face."


"I had no right to refuse. That was the Major's first order to me, after all."

Saitou tells stories the same way he sees the world: by slotting together black and white units to create a larger whole. He has no time for dramatization or elegant prose, just as he doesn't see beauty in landscapes anymore, only cover and sight lines.

But of course, it wasn't that clear cut.

* * *

"Become my subordinate."

There are two worlds right now, and in each there's only one absolute. In the external world, it's her. The full-body cyborg standing at his side with her rifle trained on him, staring down unblinkingly. Saitou is able to imagine meeting a sniper superior to him, but that's not what she is. She isn't a perfect sniper, she's a perfect soldier, and that's an entirely different class. Half-blind he can see it; even fully blind he would still know. She radiates skill and indefatigable competency so brightly it makes even a mercenary like him straighten towards attention. Everything about her is cut-glass, black and white. Obey, or die. And he still has an attachment to this life.

The internal world is wholly taken up with pain, so intense it's beginning even to eclipse her presence. Her knife has sliced clean through his wrist, snapping at least one of the bones, before pinning it so firmly to the concrete girder he couldn't move it even if he could endure the agony of trying. The pain is thick and molten and it's starting to flow down his arm, slow as magma. His eye is nothing but bright white bursts of pain, and it must be the proximity to his brain but it feels like the worst headache he's ever had, like someone driving slivers of glass into his frontal lobe with a hammer.

"I'm afraid I'll need that back," she says, kneeling beside him and glancing at the knife. After taking possession of his handgun, she begins to tear apart the bottom of his shirt. Like all cyborgs, she smells not of sweat but of the slightly acidic scent of cybernetic coolant. That, and blood.

"I can't stay here all day anyway," he tells her, gravely.

"Tomorrow afternoon, come to the west entrance of the Sector 21 Allied Base. Ask for Major Kusanagi. The guards on duty will be expecting you. Of course, come as a civilian." She says it as if it goes without saying, which it does. Any unknown individuals approaching out of uniform with rifles on their back would be shot before they made it out of the shadow of the surrounding slums.

"Understood."

"Then consider this your gift to the departed." She pulls out the knife, and the world goes white.

* * *

When Saitou comes to, he's alone on the hospital roof. Water is still trickling down uneven slabs of concrete, so he knows not much time can have passed. He glances down and finds that his wrist has been neatly bandaged in strips of his own shirt. Reaching up, he feels that his eye hasn't been bandaged, but there isn't much blood on his cheek. It would cost more than it would benefit him to try to deal with it now.

His pistol has been returned, left within reach of his good hand. As if in trade, his rifle is gone. Possibly to serve as a trophy, but more likely to act as proof of death. That, and the bloody knife. It hardly matters; he couldn't use the bolt-action now anyway.

The sunlight is lying in golden pools as he makes his way slowly across the crumbling roof. He's glad of the rain; the clouds are probably light enough now to hold off any further precipitation until tomorrow afternoon. Usually rain would make good cover for a long trek, but he has enough concerns at the moment without worrying about dampness and the host of problems spending 24 hours in the wet with significant injury may bring.

Stashed away in a windowless room in the floor below, Saitou finds his pack and equipment waiting for him. Most of it will have to be abandoned; the weaponry won't make it onto the base, and he can't carry anything that will identify him as having Red Bianco connections. He tosses out the majority of his rations, his electronics, and his first aid kit. He keeps only his water and some prepackaged crap he picked up on the black market a while ago, along with a good supply of bandages, some ancient sachets of sulfa, and a bottle of aspirin. It's all depressingly last century.

In one dusty corner, Saitou has more potable water stored than he can possibly carry with him; he drinks as much of it as he can to make up for the blood still leaking from beneath the bandage. It tastes slightly of iodine, as always, but he hardly notices it anymore. Stomach at least temporarily full, he swings his bag up onto his good shoulder and heads for the stairs.

It should only take half a day to cross the town to the rendezvous point specified by the female cyborg – Major Kusanagi? – but he wants to make the majority of the trip early. He's worried about infection in the eye, and he thinks the artery in his wrist may have been nicked. The nerves are almost certainly damaged, although it's also possible that a broken bone – and he has at least one – is screwing up his hand. Either way, it won't work properly. He has no idea whether he has retained any sensation there; over the scalding pain in his wrist, he wouldn't feel even a hot iron pressed against his palm. But the fingers only twitch faintly when he tries to make a fist, a mockery of their former precision.

He refuses to allow any contemplation of the future of a sniper with only one hand and one eye.

* * *

It's entirely possible that one or both of the two sweeping teams intended to be clearing the way for the nuclear device are still in the area, and Red Bianco doesn't pay well enough to fund thermo-optic camouflage. Saitou uses the familiarity gained from days of searching out the perfect sniper's nest to cross the terrain by cutting through buildings rather than on the open roads.

Since the last round of carpet bombing, this sector has been mostly abandoned, and the few remaining occupants are mostly guerrillas. He pulls out his red bandanna and ties it awkwardly on his left arm. It isn't much protection, but it usually buys a free pass from any local snipers, at least. The guerrillas all wear them on the same arm, changing the pattern on different days. The UN still hasn't cracked the code, and since wearing it on the wrong arm is an instant death sentence, they've stopped trying. Saitou's surprised the secret hasn't slipped out yet, but guerrillas are notoriously tight-lipped when it comes to betraying loyalties, and the troops haven't been too interested in taking mercs alive. It's simply the number of letters in the date; even right, odd left.

When he first arrived, walking through the crumbling streets of Monterrey was so strongly reminiscent of the Japanese Refugee Zones that Saitou found himself searching for the sounds and smells associated with them – the stench of cheap deep-fry vats venting out onto streets, greasy smoke from the under-inspected factories, children shouting after one another in a pidgin language made up usually of Chinese and Japanese. He's been here long enough now to sees it as its own distinct world. A world that deteriorates a little more with each passing day of UN troops sweeping through, and each night of bombing runs. He walks through the burnt-out husks of stores, churches, apartment buildings that are noticeably closer to disintegration than they were a few days ago. The messages scrawled on the walls in the early days of the occupation in paint, chalk and even blood stopped propagating a while ago. There's no one left to read them.

Saitou waits for a cloud to slip across the sun before crossing a long stretch of open road, and then goes to ground again in the remains of a school. He's come barely a kilometre, and he's sweating.

* * *

It's hard to drum up the appetite to eat the food he needs to keep up his energy levels. His stomach turns at the thought of the vacuum-sealed rations, and even at the simpler tin of crackers he picked up somewhere as a trade. Saitou's not used to this kind of disobedience from his body – he's been a soldier long enough that his body knows to eat, sleep and piss on command, regardless of the situation. He chokes down half a pack of tasteless gruel and another bottle of water eventually, watching his good hand shake. The aspirin's burning a hole in his pocket, but with a potentially nicked artery, he doesn't dare use it.

This may well be a test disguised as a necessity, Saitou knows. Although he has little knowledge of mankind off the battlefield, full-body cyborg soldiers are known for their scorn of the endurance and strength of their human counterparts. Some of them take a hell of a lot of convincing to believe the other half can do the job equally well; most never get there at all.

Saitou himself doesn't give much thought to the differences; once they enter his crosshairs, there aren't any.

* * *

He crosses the city in fits and starts, the breaks growing longer and the marches shorter as the sun sinks towards the horizon. His wrist tolerates less and less jolting, and the pain in his head is beginning to affect the vision of his good eye. He's forced to put away his handgun and use his hand for support, leaning against the walls of buildings and stone fences. It's unsafe for too many reasons to count, but he can't count straight right now anyway.

Saitou's a kilometre away from the base when he sits down for a rest in the burned-out husk of a store, and knows after a minute that he's not going to be able to get up again tonight. His head is spinning, and his stomach is bucking its orders again.

In regular circumstances, he would have moved up to the top floor and set up a motion detector as well as traps in all the doorways between the front door and his bolt hole. The best he can manage now is to sit propped up against the far wall with his gun ready beside him, swallowing more sour water and wishing like hell he had some caffeine.

He doesn't intend to sleep, but it becomes increasingly clear as the night drags on that he isn't going to have much choice in the matter. He finds himself drifting off into an anxious half-sleep, a shadowy place just close enough to reality to confuse him, but filled with all the stuff of nightmares. His frequent attempts to snap back into wakefulness only reinforce his dreaming mind's perception of the world around him, making his fever dreams all the more realistic.

And they are feverish. Saitou becomes aware sometime in the night that he's sweating too much, that he's too hot inside his skin. At some academic level he knows it's a bad sign, but his mind is taken up with the twisting shades flitting across the walls and the sounds shuffling at the edge of his hearing to deal with it. Eventually, he forgets about it.

* * *

It's the shivers that wake him the next morning, setting off a series of painful flares in his wrist. It takes Saitou several minutes to remember why he's here, and even longer to remember where he's going.

He re-bandages his wrist with clumsy fingers that cannot seem to pull the cloth into even strips, and finds that the bleeding has slowed to a sluggish pace. The whole left side of his head feels like it's been struck repeatedly by a sledgehammer; the least touch sends violent spasms of pain through his face and skull, and he shies away from investigating. There's a bad taste in his mouth, his stomach is twisted in knots, and he feels cold and shaky, like he's just run a marathon. He can barely drink the water he knows he needs to. He finds a rattling bottle of aspirin in his pocket, the tiny lid fighting against his clumsy hand. He has some vague idea that there's something he should remember about it, but the thoughts slip away from him when he tries to catch them. He swallows two; they catch painfully in his throat, powdery and jagged.

Saitou struggles to his feet, world swaying alarmingly around him as he shifts to maintain his precarious balance. He has perfect vision, but the distant buildings are blurred, like a painting wiped with a sponge. He pulls his pack onto his good shoulder and makes his way out into the bright, sweltering day. The sun is well overhead; his watch should tell him the time, but he can't seem to make sense of the tiny numbers – 11:34? 13:41? 14:13? The day is advanced enough at least for the streets to be radiating heat upwards, humidity settled over the city and turning the distant blurry horizon grey.

Saitou walks through the empty streets like a drunk, falling into potholes and out the other side – as hard as he tries to walk a straight line, his legs betray him. He remembers only several streets along the red bandana on his arm and pulls it off with fumbling fingers, leaves it lying on a wall painted with bright sunflower-yellow graffiti. His pack he abandons a street later, its bulk sending him spiralling consistently to the right.

When he finally reaches the base, he is less conscious of its presence than the abrupt openness he finds himself standing in. Even nearby buildings are out of focus now, their lines shifting slowly like a muddy river, and it takes some staring to make out what is in fact a compound on the other side of a chain-link fence. He approaches it slowly, wary of the openness and aware at least that he is in no position to deal with an attack.

It takes some walking along the length of the fence to find the gates, an outpost guarded by reinforced steel buildings that project a blast-furnace's heat. Saitou finds that he is panting, but his skin is strangely dry, hardly any sweat stinging his wounds.

"The hell d'you want, you little shit?" demands the American on the gate in English, prodding Saitou with his Seburo submachine gun while his partner chuckles quietly.

"Japanese woman," Saitou manages; his throat feels dry as dust. "Need to see the Japanese major. Kusanagi," he supplies, in a bright burst of memory. "Major Kusanagi."

The attitude of both guards changes immediately; they straighten from grunts into soldiers.

"What do you want with her?"

Saitou looks at him, slowly, for a minute. "She sent for me," he says, flatly. And then, without ceremony, passes out.

* * *

Saitou wakes up with a dull headache and a salty taste in his mouth. His left arm feels unnaturally stiff, and he knows immediately that it's been immobilized. He opens his eyes and sees only darkness on the first blink; after a few seconds his one good eye adjusts and he can make out the outline of a door and a window. He's lying down on a hard, uncomfortable bed; most likely a fold-up cot.

"Well, well. And to think the Colonel pushed back your interrogation to tomorrow," says a female voice, from somewhere close by and above, speaking Japanese.

Saitou's eye tracks to follow the voice; there is only the slightest hint of an outline, black on black.

"Major Kusanagi?" his voice is raw, but not as raw as he had expected. He finds, swallowing, that he is much better hydrated than he ought to be, and pulling at his arm feels the tell-tale prickle of an IV line.

"Are you questioning my identity, or my name?" The wry humour in the woman's voice is enough for him – he won't forget it in this lifetime.

"You just answered the first. Your name doesn't matter to me, except to pass questioning."

"I like people who are to-the-point." He can hear the smile in her voice. She goes on in a matter-of-fact tone: "Your story is that you are a scout collecting information for the Japanese SDF on local mercenary groups, of late Red Bianco, with me as your contact. You _are_ Japanese?"

"Yes."

"And you should have no trouble convincing them of your knowledge of Red Bianco." It isn't a question.

"No, but I have no proof of affiliation with the SDF." Naturally, since he has none.

"I'll take care of that. You've been here for two months, feeding me information via secure net uploads – I'll take care of that, too."

"If they ask me for the connection details?"

"Doubtful, but if they do… use the link to your remote 20mm. I can get the details from my intel man." She answers almost without pause, pulling out seamless answers with no difficulty. His admiration is solidified but doesn't grow – he saw everything he needed to to judge her in less than a second on the hospital roof. Competent, confident, absolute. He has no fears that her scheme will fall through. "As for my name, Major Kusanagi will do. And you?"

"Saitou," answers Saitou. It's neither honest nor dishonest, just a name. She doesn't question it. "I have to ask, Major, whether I will be of any use to you. My hand may be ruined, my eye certainly is."

"You are telling a full-body cyborg that you may be sidelined by a blind eye and a damaged wrist?"

"Mercenaries employed by voluntary organizations aren't paid very well," replies Saitou, blandly. It's a neat distraction from the shock of hearing the word _blind_. Of course, he had known it all along, but hope is treacherously hard to kill. He smothers it entirely now, giving it a quick, fierce death in the dark cell.

"Neither are SDF officers, but Ishikawa is perfectly capable of logging some insurance paperwork for you to ensure you receive the treatment you need. In any case, like you, I take my skills where I please. And I believe by the end of this campaign, I'll have a unit capable of driving a hard bargain on any continent. Don't worry about the future: I'll take care of that."

"Yes, Major."

He hears a rustle of cloth, and sees the tiny hint of her silhouette shift towards the window. "I'm glad you decided to show," she says, sounding honestly pleased – the sardonic tone at least temporarily absent.

"I didn't realise I had a choice."

"Didn't you?" she asks. The bright wit of earlier is back, and Saitou knows that this woman has him beat once more. She has no intention of confirming to stereotypes – that she might be looking for loyalty rather than stamina never even occurred to him.

The bright light floods in as she raises the canvas flap serving as a curtain. By the time his eye adjusts she's just a streak of purple and black vaulting out of the window. She moves with the smoothness of a machine, but the grace even the world's best androids haven't yet learned to imitate – a neat twist of her core, and she's gone without a sound.

It's enough to put him at ease; sniping is an art in its way, and the day Saitou cannot do it justice is the day he gives it up. He now has the comfort of knowing, watching the canvas fall silently shut again, that she wouldn't settle for anything less.

END


End file.
